Rely-a-light was birthed out of the occurrence of the worst ice storm that the south has seen in 25 years. During this time, the company had no product, the company had no name, in fact, there was no company or employees—all there was just an idea. The father of one of the founders, who suffered from mild Alzheimer's and COPD, lived with the founders. During the storm, the founders of the company were plunged into darkness on a cold February night around 9:30 pm. The founder's father got up to investigate the power outage, got tangled in his oxygen tubing and fell. Thankfully he was ok, but it put thoughts in motion. How could such an incident be prevented from happening again? What if he had been badly hurt and lived alone? How many people fumble around in the dark during a power outage? Benjamin Franklin once said, “Necessity is the mother of invention.” He was right. Rely-a-light was born that week at the kitchen table. The founder began to work at finding a solution to this dilemma. One of the founders, having a background in electrical contracting, came up with the electrical configuration and materials from junk in our garage. The other founder, with a background is in Interior Design, worked on other aspects of the product and together, they formulated an idea, reduced it to practice and designed a product to address this need in the art.
Thus, there is the need in the art for an emergency back up lighting system that can automatically provide illumination to an area during a power outage.
There are numerous commercial and industrial emergency lighting systems that provide backup lighting during emergency situations, such as when power is lost due to a fire or otherwise. The purpose of such systems is to provide a sufficient level of ambient light to enable individuals to safely move around the area and/or to find an exit. The systems that are available are typically focused on commercial applications and environments and thus, they are not easily purchased and installed by a consumer in a home environment. Typically, the available lighting systems are mounted to a wall or ceiling and are hardwired into the electrical system for the building. The devices are not mobile and thus, once installed are generally permanent fixtures. These industrial lightly systems are also not designed for the aesthetic of household use. They tend to be bulk, boxy and gray. There is a need, therefore, for an emergency back up lighting system that is specifically designed for household use, that can be easily moved from one location to the next as desired, is easily installed and uninstalled and, is aesthetic suitable for household usage.